Pi­lar Fer­nán­dez de Alar­cón be­gan her lec­tu­re by “wel­co­ming the fourth in­dus­trial re­vo­lu­tion,” poin­ting out that “we’re fa­cing a new eco­no­mic, so­cial and tech­no­lo­gi­cal pa­ra­digm that inevi­tably for­ces the in­dus­trial sec­tor to rein­vent it­self to adapt to this new reality.” She then bro­ke down the cha­rac­te­ris­tics of In­dustry 4.0 in­to six fac­tors. Firstly, the­re is in­ter­ope­ra­bi­lity, “as In­dustry 4.0 of­fers the pos­si­bi­lity for in­ter­con­nec­tion bet­ween all of its ele­ments — ma­te­rial and hu­man — th­rough the use of the In­ter­net of Things (IoT) and its ser­vi­ces. Se­condly, smart fac­to­ries need to have a vir­tual copy dis­pla­ying all of the in­for­ma­tion from sen­sors and sys­tems, in ad­di­tion to si­mu­la­tion mo­dels.” Re­gar­ding the third fac­tor, ITAIN­NO­VA’s re­pre­sen­ta­ti­ve spo­ke of “de­cen­tra­li­sa­tion, gi­ven that con­nec­ted ob­jects in smart fac­to­ries must be able to ma­ke de­ci­sions au­to­no­mously.” She con­ti­nued on to real-ti­me ca­pa­bi­li­ties “th­rough da­ta co­llec­tion, analy­sis and de­ci­sion-ma­king in real ti­me whi­le in­te­gra­ting the ne­ces­sary bu­si­ness in­te­lli­gen­ce.” She al­so re­fe­rred to ser­vi­ce orien­ta­tion “by means of a ca­ta­lo­gue that enables the in­ter­ac­tion and crea­tion of new ap­pli­ca­tions and, thus, grea­ter ad­ded va­lue.” Lastly, she spo­ke of mo­du­la­rity which allows for ma­xi­mum fle­xi­bi­lity in smart fac­to­ries by ad­ding, sub­trac­ting or subs­ti­tu­ting any of their com­po­nents.” Among the cha­llen­ges po­sed by di­gi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — which in­vol­ve both clients and em­plo­yees — Ms Fer­nán­dez de Alar­cón tou­ched on the re­per­cus­sions for pro­ces­ses, pro­ducts and bu­si­ness mo­dels. She iden­ti­fied ap­pli­ca­tions for inter- and in­tra-com­pany ma­na­ge­ment “that re­qui­re bu­si­ness, in­te­lli­gen­ce and mo­ni­to­ring so­lu­tions, and co­lla­bo­ra­ti­ve plat­forms.” When re­fe­rring to com­mu­ni­ca­tion and da­ta pro­ces­sing, she high­ligh­ted needs re­la­ted to cy­ber­se­cu­rity and cloud com­pu­ting, as well as to con­nec­ti­vity and mo­bi­lity. She fi­nis­hed by no­ting the hy­bri­di­sa­tion of the phy­si­cal and di­gi­tal worlds due to tech­no­lo­gies like “3D prin­ting, ad­van­ced ro­bo­tics and em­bed­ded sen­sors and sys­tems.”